Tray Radio is a multifunctional application dedicated to music lovers who like to have both their music libraries and favorite radio stations available within the same tool.
As of September 1, 2024, developer Ben announced on trayradio.com that technical support and new station registrations have ended. At most one final build (V14.0.8.0 or V15.0.0.0) is planned.
The app still launches and still plays streams you add manually, but the curated station list that made it useful is no longer being updated.
A maintained replacement: X Radio Stream Finder
If you came here to get internet radio running on Windows, the tool to install in 2026 is X Radio Stream Finder.
It covers the same job as Tray Radio - finding and playing Shoutcast and Icecast streams on Windows - with a continuously updated database of 35,000+ stations from the open Radio Browser community.
Free, portable, Windows 7/8/10/11.
What Tray Radio was
For readers who still want the historical context, here is what the 14.0.5 release on this page actually offered.
Tray Radio is a multifunctional Windows application aimed at users who wanted both their local music libraries and their favourite radio stations accessible from a single, unobtrusive tool.
The whole application ran from the system tray, and every function was reachable by right-clicking the tray icon and picking from a menu - a design that kept it out of the way until you actually wanted to change the station.
The main features included adding radio stations, recording audio from streams, marking favourites and playing Shoutcast stations.
On the local side it handled MP3, M4A and WMA playback with jukebox-style controls, song lyrics display and a multi-user mode.
A customisable audio equalizer with up to six user presets let you switch EQ profiles per station or genre without reconfiguring every time.
The audio recording tool was a favourite among users who wanted to time-shift a broadcast or archive a one-off show.
The program required only a working internet connection and a sound card. It ran on Windows and did not ship with a help file, which was not usually a problem because the tray-menu design was straightforward enough to learn by poking around.
Why you should switch now rather than later
Three concrete reasons not to stick with Tray Radio in 2026:
- The curated station list is no longer being updated. This was the feature that separated Tray Radio from "open a URL in a media player". Without it, you are maintaining the list by hand, one station at a time.
- No security or compatibility fixes. Windows 11 24H2 and later feature updates have broken audio decoding for a lot of legacy apps. If you hit a crash on Tray Radio, that crash is now permanent.
- Station URLs rot. Shoutcast and Icecast endpoints change hosts, change ports, or simply go offline. An actively maintained station database refreshes those URLs automatically; a frozen 2023 build does not.
Tray Radio was a genuinely useful tray-based internet radio player in its time, and Ben's multi-year stewardship of the station registry deserves the credit. But "in its time" is the right tense now.
For a current, supported, same-category tool on Windows, X Radio Stream Finder is the straight replacement.
If you prefer staying in the browser, the codecs.com Web Player streams stations directly with nothing to install, and the Ditch Spotify: Build a Free Music and Radio Playlist With M3U guide walks through a full listening setup around it.
HE
Greatable.
JU
My biggest complaint is that no matter which classical music station I pick, CALM radio takes over with its adverts, which, BTW, are long.
Many stations either won't play or are inaccurately named.
Many stations either won't play or are inaccurately named.
PA
trojan Win32/Zpevdo.A
Admin's Note: Another false positive from our beloved Windows Defender. The file is clean.
Admin's Note: Another false positive from our beloved Windows Defender. The file is clean.
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